


Caged

by ellay_gee



Series: Whumptober 2020 [12]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt Stiles Stilinski, Kidnapped Stiles Stilinski, M/M, Magic, Protective Derek Hale, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Whumptober 2020, Witches, day 6 caged, pre-Sterek - Freeform, scott and allison are there but not important to the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:07:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27455470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellay_gee/pseuds/ellay_gee
Summary: Classic "someone takes Stiles and Derek is not happy about that fic" + magic, which is always a fun addition.
Relationships: Derek Hale & Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Series: Whumptober 2020 [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949494
Comments: 4
Kudos: 224
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Caged

**Author's Note:**

> hello, this is my first TW fic (and a very late Whumptober entry...I guess we could call it Whumptember now?) Be warned it is not canon as I started reading fic when i was like 4 eps in and was like ...fanon is better because m a g i c. I'm excited to join the delightful fic authors here! I hope you enjoy!

“Stacy’s mom has got it goin’ on…” Stiles bops along to the song, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as he makes his way back home after a particularly boring pack meeting. 

A boring _and_ disappointing pack meeting. Derek didn’t even furrow his brows  _ once _ . Pure waste of hotness, right there.

He skid around a corner-- enjoying the freedom to drive a little more loosely since it was so late--but abruptly had to swerve onto the shoulder to avoid a human-shaped lump in the middle of the road. 

Heart racing, Stiles shut off the engine and slid out of the jeep. “ _ Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead, pleasedontbedead…”  _ he whispers to himself as he approaches the lifeless figure. 

“Hey, you ok?” He calls out, keeping himself out of striking distance just in case. 

Ya know, like maybe this guy is a werewolf and this is a trap. He’s seen this episode of Bonanza…and pretty much every old Western show his dad and he watched when he was little.

“Hey,” he tried again when the lump makes no movement. “You ok? I--I'm gonna call 911 for you…” Pulling his red hoodie closer around himself, he takes another tentative step forward as he digs his phone out of his pocket. 

The guy’s head snaps up all of a sudden, growl rumbling and blue eyes shining. 

Oh shit. 

This guy _is_ a werewolf. 

And this _is_ a trap. 

* * *

Derek stretches himself out in bed, enjoying the quiet. The pack meeting had been short; or rather it would have been if Stiles hadn’t rambled on for thirty minutes about the upcoming release of some movie or another, he can’t recall. 

He wasn’t exactly complaining because though he hadn’t been paying attention to what Stiles was saying, he was intently watching his mouth move. Those soft, plump lips pushing off one another, parting and coming together and turning up at the corners beautifully--

Derek sighs loudly into the empty room. He has no right to think of Stiles in this manner. Him just being in the pack is dangerous enough; if their rivals and enemies catch wind of how Derek feels, it will put an even bigger target on the other man’s back. 

No, better to keep his feelings to himself. Nothing but pain and strife and death waits for those who give their love to Derek Hale. 

He closes his eyes and falls into a restless sleep where he dreams of mole-dotted skin and crooked smiles. 

* * *

Stiles has that drifting, unreal feeling he associates with concussions and high fevers. 

He doesn’t remember having the flu, so the former is probably the culprit. 

Groaning, he attempts to open his eyes, but that proves too difficult a task. He is about to let the tides of the concussion drag him back down when a low rumble sounds out somewhere to his left. 

“Wha..?” He manages, his head pounding at the effort. 

A throaty chuckle is his only reply. 

Right, well he supposed if he isn’t able to get out a question, the answer doesn’t really matter.

He tries his eyes again, this time managing to pull them open a sliver. “Wher..?” he moans, then promptly vomits. He briefly acknowledges his luck that he is already lying on his side as he weakly rolls himself back far enough to get his face a few inches from the puddle of bile. 

“You hit him too hard.” A different voice says from somewhere farther away. 

“He’s tougher than he looks, he’ll be fine enough for the plan.” The first voice answers, and Stiles moans again. 

Flashes of earlier that evening fly through his mind, catching him up somewhat. 

A figure on the ground, but suddenly looming and moving  _ fast _ . 

Stiles backing away before turning and booking it toward the jeep. But he was trying to outrun a werewolf, which was stupid. 

Instead of grabbing Stiles when he caught up, the wolf pushed, sending the boy flailing head-first into the door of the jeep. Allowing for no recovery time, he then grabbed Stiles and flipped him over, straddling his legs and letting out a triumphant howl.

Stiles frantically dug into his pocket while the ‘wolf congratulated himself. Stiles stifled his own self-satisfied hoot as he pulled a plastic baggie out and ripped it open  _ believing _ the contents would scatter on sudden gust of wind and  _ whaddyaknow _ , the wolfsbane powder just happened to fly up and his attacker reared back, growling out a disgusted “ _ witch!” _

“I prefer mage!” Bucking and kicking, Stiles managed to scramble out from under the wolf, but didn’t get far. 

He remembers thundering footsteps, a sudden lurch, the weightlessness of sailing through the air and the breath-stealing impact of slamming into his windshield. Twitching, moaning and suddenly  _ dragging _ . A thud. An angry sneer. A planet-sized fist encompassing his vision. 

_ “You’re tougher than you look.”  _

Darkness.

* * *

Derek slips on his jacket, the late February morning air nippier than he prefers, especially considering it was California. Humming to himself, he heads down to his car. He likes to get an early start on errands on Saturday mornings so the rest of the day can be spent relaxing or with the pack.

Tonight will be a full moon. They plan on running the Preserve as usual. Derek is picking up steaks in case they don’t come across a deer to kill. 

He pauses when he gets to the camero, his phone buzzing with a flurry of messages. 

Rolling his eyes, but secretly happy to see several messages pop up from Stiles, he opened the conversation thread and immediately fills with dread. 

It is a series of photos, each one more concerning than the last.

The jeep, the windshield broken. 

A red hoodie, ripped and covered in mud.

Stiles, crumpled on the ground, a large bruise forming on his temple, blood streaked across his face.

Then a facetime request comes through and Derek sags against the car, all breath gone from his body as he accepts the call.

“What do you want?” He snarls, not daring to look away from the screen. 

Instead of facing the kidnapper, the phone is turned outwards toward what appears to be a set of old batting cages--two rectangular chain-link structures that share a wall--in one of them is Stiles, huddled in the corner and looking worse for wear.

He has his legs drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around them and head resting on his knees. Dried blood is matted in his hair and streaked down one side of his face, but the wound appears to have stopped bleeding. 

“Well, that’s a pretty broad question, Alpha Hale.” A smooth voice answers him. 

“What do you  _ want _ ?”

“Broadly speaking, we want power.”

“And you think taking some human is going to do that for you?”

The voice laughs low and mean. “Oh this is no human, Hale. We've got ourselves a witch.”

“He’s just a kid,” Derek scoffs.

On the screen, Stiles sits up straight, somehow drawing his legs even more into himself. 

The low voice returns as a shadow creeps across the screen, making its way to Stiles. “That boy’s got a spark brighter than most I’ve ever seen, seems you’ve been sleeping on this one.”

Derek clenches the phone tight in his hand, ignoring the dull ache it sends through his fingers. “Who are you?”

There is a creak and a rattle and suddenly on the screen a figure dressed in head-to-toe black walks into the cage with Stiles. At a gesture, the boy is on his feet--

_ \--no _ \--he's floating, feet kicking feebly as he struggles against the hold of magic.

_ “What kind of force bullshit is this?!”  _

Derek’s heart calms just a little hearing Stiles’s snark come through the line. 

A palpable orange light forms around Stiles; it pulses and writhes with him as he struggles, but at a flick of the wrist from the figure, it begins to curl like a luminous snake and wrap around them instead, their own dark aura rising to devour its prey.

Stiles’ struggles start to weaken, then as suddenly as it began the magical attack is over and the boy is dropped unceremoniously to the ground where he lay in a heap of shaking limbs and ragged breaths. 

The voice on the phone comes back on as the figure turns and saunters out of the cage. 

“Now, we could very well have just taken the boy with nary a word and spent the next week or so draining him of that ample spark of his. But, we’ve decided to be kind and offer you a trade.”

Derek has to stop himself from letting his heart run away with his mouth. He’d give them anything to get  ~~ Stiles ~~ a member of his pack back in one piece. 

Of course, they probably knew that. 

“I’m listening.”

“It’s so simple, even you can handle it. We want to trade him for you.”

The speaker must be nearby, because Stiles struggles back up at that, lurching feebly to his feet and all but falling into the chain-link fence, his voice echoing tinnily as he shouts: “Trap!! Derek! TRAP!”

Derek watches impotently as on the screen Stiles is grabbed by the invisible force again, his body flying up into the top of the cage before slamming down. This time he doesn’t move at all.

“Where are you?”

“My my, Derek, don’t you even want to know _why_ we want you?”

“Not really.”

“Fair enough.”

* * *

Whoever these people are, they’d taken great care to get as far away from Beacon Hills as possible. It is a three hour drive to the address of what turned out to be an abandoned kid’s baseball park, which--according to the wooden map that stood at the entrance--boasted twelve fields, each with its own dugout and ramshackle bleachers. 

The stench of anxiety and blood is pungent, and Derek follows it and the concrete path which eventually leads him to where the fields butt into a small wooded area. An old building that used to house a set of public restrooms and a concession stand stands off to one side, and a set of batting cage off to the other.

There are two witches and a single ‘wolf. One of the witches seems to be nursing some sort of wound on their arm; Derek couldn’t quite see what they were doing, but the stench of burnt flesh permeates the air around them. The ‘wolf is standing in front of the batting cage, arms crossed and blue eyes shining. 

In the cage is the other witch, who is standing behind Stiles. He is on his knees, hands bound behind his back and is being held up by a collar that digs cruelly into his neck and is attached to a chain looped through the fencing of the roof of the cage. 

The other ‘wolf is the first to speak. “We were wondering if you’d show up. I mean, he did warn you this is a trap and all.”

“Well, I’m here. Let him go.” 

“Why would we do that when I can just kill you, take your Alpha powers, and then my friends here can spend the next few days draining the kid’s spark? Win/win for us.”

“Maybe because I’m not an idiot and I brought some friends along with me.” 

_ Fwippp _ an arrow sails over Derek’s shoulder and embeds itself into the chest of the other ‘wolf. His expression turns incredulous before the pain of the wolfsbane coating starts coursing through him. 

“You brought a  _ hunter _ ? What kind of ‘wolf are you?” He rasps as he lumbers forward a few steps before falling to his knees. 

Derek shifts and snarls, gnashing teeth as he closes the distance between them. He grabs the end of the arrow and twists and wrenches as the other ‘wolf whines his distress. “I’m the kind of ‘wolf you don’t fuck with.”

He leaves the man bloody and broken on the ground. Behind him the witch with the burnt arm advances on the spot where the arrow had come from, but he knows Allison can take care of herself. 

Besides--

Silent and furious, Scott bursts out of the little stand of trees, barreling into the witch. Derek doesn’t spare the fight a second glance as he strides up to the batting cage door, swiping at the lock then ripping the door open and rushing inside. 

The witch standing behind Stiles has added the element of magic to her many restraints on him. It curls around his body, deep black tendrils of night slowly pulling threads of yellow and orange from his aura. 

He takes Stiles in; the whiskey eyes wet with pain and relief, his mouth twisted in something akin to a smile as he rasps a “good to see you, Der.”

Derek doesn’t respond, his nostrils are flared, filled with the scent of Stiles’ blood. He’s barely keeping himself under wraps, but he knows  _ this one is dangerous. _ She is obviously the ringleader. She’s thrown off her black hood, and her long hair is ruffled by the breeze created by her swirling magic, face alight with it and set in cruel lines.

“It seems my ‘wolf friend indeed underestimated you. We heard that Alpha Hale was a failing leader to a ragtag bunch of mongrels.” She smiles meanly and brings her right hand up, squeezing it into a quick, tight fist and suddenly Stiles is gasping and the light radiating from him becomes almost too much to bear.

The energy rolling off the two is a physical thing and Derek stumbles back a little, running into Scott and Allison, who he’d not noticed coming into the cage behind him. 

Stiles lets out an unholy scream, his eyes rolling back in his head till there are only whites and every muscle in his body seems to be straining; veins running orange and yellow and a faint green with power. 

Derek tries, he really does, but the force of the magic blows him back even harder and he and Scott and Allison all collapse against the fencing at their backs. 

However, whatever is happening seems to have effected the witch as well--she screeches and struggles to step back, but the threads of Stiles’s aura keeps her trapped. They pulsate and bend and slither along her own lines of power until they evaporate and with a final earsplitting wail the woman collapses into a pile of smoldering dust and everything goes to night even though just moments ago the sun was shining high. 

Dazed, it takes a moment for Derek to realize that Stiles has lost consciousness and scrambles to where he’s sagged against the collar still attached to the roof of the cage that is slowly choking the life out of him. 

Scott and Allison are there in seconds, making short work of the collar so that Derek can properly collapse onto the ground with him, nosing his blood-crusted hair and pulling him close and whispering comforting platitudes as he listens to Stiles’s short-but-even breaths.

* * *

“So this spark of mine...overloaded the witch who was trying to steal it?”

Stiles is laying in bed at Derek’s loft, Deaton standing off to one side while Derek glares at him from the other end of the room. 

“That’s what it would seem. Had she simply been patient, she could have likely kept you for a few weeks and drained it completely, leaving you a burnt out husk. But her desperation for power was her own undoing and it seems you may have absorbed her spark instead.”

Stiles lifts his hand, frowning at it. He has to focus for a moment, but when he does a tiny bit of orange fire pops up in his palm and a moment later, black tendrils flow out and join it, turning it a dark red. 

“This is what I used on the other witch--the one Scott took down. It surprised me when it happened; they came into the cage and used that force thing on me, but I was able to lash out--grab them by the wrist and then my hand was on fire but it didn’t hurt…? That’s when they called me dangerous and trussed me up."

Derek growled at the bruises where they’d tied his wrists far too tight. Stiles quirked a smile at him before dismissing the little flame and shoving his hands under the blankets. 

“So...where’d I get this spark? Like was I born with it?”

Deaton cocks his head, a slightly pained look upon his face. “In a manner of speaking, yes. A spark is akin to the alpha powers of werewolves; it takes a death to pass it on, but it can only go to someone who is already imbued with magic.

“I suspect that your mother likely had the spark and passed it on to you.”

Stiles swallowed hard, flashes of his mother’s lopsided smile, her golden brown eyes, her musical laughter.

...her garden that always flourished

...her soft, warm hands smoothing away his aches and pains and fevers.

...how she could always get the gas stove to light, even when they were out of matches. 

“Unfortunately what I am and what you are do not overlap in abilities or knowledge. Perhaps if you have some family you could contact--”

Stiles shakes his head once, resolute. “There’s no one. They’re all dead.”

Deaton nods, eyes sympathetic. “More’s the pity. I will see if there’s anything or anyone I can find that may have more answers for you.”

Stiles nods along, staring down at the blanket, eyes wet with memories. 

Deaton takes his leave and Derek almost follows him, but a snuffle from behind has him turning back to Stiles. 

“Uhm, could you--could you just stay with me a while? This is a lot to process and I just...I dunno. I need someone to be here.”

Derek’s insides freeze momentarily before he catches himself and strolls over to the side of the bed. “Of course.”

Stiles pulls back the blanket; an invitation. 

Derek climbs into bed and pulls Stiles close to him, so he can rest his weary head on Derek’s chest. There’s so many things he could say--he  _ should _ say; he can taste the words on his tongue. But before he’d picked the right phrase, the right question, the right way to express his longing, Stiles’s breaths have evened out. 

Stiles sleeps and Derek does not. 


End file.
